Famine 229: Failed Digestion
by Cristae Gurgle, gurgle…
The mass of flesh was growing at an awe-inspiring speed, swelling to fill the entire desktop, then flowing over the edge and down the sides. It kept expanding, showing no sign of stopping.
Bian Xu quickly summoned a vine, gobbled the mass in a single bite, and delivered it to the farm.
Yet no vibrant new world sprouted from this flesh. In the newly formed world, there were still only mountains—mountains wrapped in flesh below, happily devouring all outside.
[S-class Derived Food—Failed Digestion]
An outsider crashed from the sky into the depths of the mountains, uncertain of what to do, staring blankly with wide, puzzled eyes.
The priest believed, just as countless sacrifices before, that if the Heaven-sent flesh were slain and fed to their descendants, it would protect clan and offspring, bringing abundance and hope.
The following day, the most devout child’s skin began to bulge irregularly, muscles throbbing. A wide, smiling split formed across their face, stretching to engulf all features, squeezing eyes and other features into twisted contortions.
Now, that thing was crawling in the corner of the room with hands and feet not its own, smiling, devouring… growing ever more bountiful, ever more hopeful.
Any unit that ate [Failed Digestion] would experience a massive growth in flesh, and a twisted smile would split across their face. Your flesh would assimilate with its own, beginning a flourishing, blissful proliferation.
…
When they finished reading, Si Zhiyan and Bian Xu fell silent together.
They turned toward the mountains.
The mountains looked quite content.
No sign of any problem at all.
Bian Xu wiped his brow. “Looks like the Main God does sometimes just outright destroy an entire world after all…”
Si Zhiyan shook his head, withholding comment.
When an outsider first descends, it’s ignorant and unknowing. However humans treat it, that’s how it responds to humanity.
The Main God probably never considered that, after endless attempts, some of these meteoric arrivals would let themselves get eaten…
The flesh itself might not have even thought this was so bad. Maybe it simply felt a happy epiphany—So this is how people are meant to get along! Wonderful!
There was no resentment, so there was no need for the farm to correct or digest it, or to refresh it into new food. It simply cheerfully brought itself to the table…
Holding a lump of the flesh, Si Zhiyan was speechless.
Who would want to eat this stuff?
The Flesh: *gurgle gurgle* (wriggles) (forms a heart) (hopeful)
“Wait.” Si Zhiyan stopped suddenly, his gaze dropping. “So, you’re saying, whatever eats you will start anomalously growing flesh… yes?”
The Flesh: Agreeable gurgle gurgle~
Si Zhiyan pressed on, “And if something that’s eaten you gets eaten itself, does the contagion pass on?”
The Flesh: Negative gurgle gurgle.
If it truly had such exponential propagation, it would have spread across the whole universe by now.
Si Zhiyan slapped his thigh.
“Fetch Yun Zhong!”
“Tell him—I’ve found the perfect feed!”
…………
……
Limitless-growing flesh and mass!!
For humans, this stuff would be san-shattering, but for livestock? Pure farmer’s delight.
Naturally, given the farm’s current prosperity, it wasn’t necessary to go as far as those old KFC rumors—breeding six-winged white chickens and cutting off the wings every day only to have them grow back. There was really no need—they weren’t starving.
However, to fatten each animal to three times its usual size before slaughter? That, they could do.
Yun Zhong was nearly delirious with joy as he cradled the flesh like a treasure.
Now you had chicken at three times the usual yield!
Giant pigs whose slaughter matched three of their predecessors!
How many resources would this save?
And since the flesh was endlessly grown in the farm, sourced and sold in-house, it also saved hugely on purchasing feed from the store.
By every calculation, it was a cause for happiness—Yun Zhong couldn’t stop grinning.
Back when the population boom had just begun, Si Zhiyan had directed Yun Zhong to designate large forest-edge tracts as pasture.
With so many more people, there was no need for everyone to go hunt their own pork.
Of course, the farm kept its hunting operations in the woods too. As the farm expanded further, with new forests, Si Zhiyan had further clarified boundaries for the hunting ground, leaving as much space as possible for the forest’s own ecology, letting its creatures roam, thrive, and reproduce freely.
Si Zhiyan set strict rules about feed, creating many rule-based tales to ensure flesh-feed never leaked outside.
Still, that wasn’t even the most important part…
The next day, the man in charge of aquaculture also arrived grinning, seeking out Si Zhiyan.
…………
……
[Twenty-five days later]
[Current worlds collected: 64]
[1.28 worlds/day]
As soon as Si Zhiyan opened the door, he was met by a wave of delicious aromas. Raising his head, suddenly interested—
“What’s all this…?”
Bian Xu peeked out of the kitchen with a smile. “Sir, something tasty today!”
No matter how busy he was outside, Bian Xu nearly always remembered to come home before Si Zhiyan and prepare a brilliant, beautiful meal with color, aroma, and taste.
If he truly got tied up, Bian Xu never forced himself. This was something he wanted for its own sake.
Intelligent and thoughtful, partial to Western dishes but skilled at Chinese too, every plate perfectly arranged—
Whatever Si Zhiyan said he’d like to eat one day, he’d find it at the table the next, courtesy of Bian Xu.
These days, life for Si Zhiyan was supremely comfortable.
Changing clothes and slipping on slippers, he walked to the square wooden dining table where, in dancing tree-shadow, sat a large bowl of white rice, and in the center, the usual plate for steamed fish—now piled with several enormous, absurdly plump mitten crabs.
Each crab was as big as a human head, nearly the size of a king crab, but the claws were full and firm, no trace of hollowness, every bit of shell packed with succulent flesh. Crab roe overflowed even the edges, dyeing the plate with a layer of golden oil.
Next to it sat an even larger round platter. In the center, a small dish of garlic-vinegar dipping sauce, its surface flecked with chili oil and floating garlic, surrounded by a ring of poached shrimp—each as thick as a child’s forearm, brilliantly red and bursting with freshness, shells thin and glossy.
On the edge sat a plate of dry-fried cauliflower with beef, another of scrambled eggs with tomatoes—all hearty staples.
Bian Xu gently set the chopsticks before him, root-end forward, both hands extended. “The seafood manager put in a report about some crab and shrimp fry a while ago. They say they’re mature now, and brought the first batch over for us.”
“I steamed four crabs, the rest I left in the pot for crab paste—I didn’t want it to get cold, so once these are eaten I’ll serve up the rest.”
Taking the chopsticks, Si Zhiyan smiled. “It certainly looks excellent.”
At times like this, the advantages of the farm’s Imaginary Ponds were plain.
In an ordinary pond, aquatic species range widely in size and efficiency; only a few big ones per pond, and having too many giants damages the population and the whole waterway’s ecology.
But the Imaginary Pond? That’s another matter.
Drop in the [Digestion Feed] and fish, shrimp, and crabs go wild—growing rapidly. Crabs as big as a head, shrimp growing monstrous, even the smallest prawn the size of a man’s palm, the largest as thick as an arm. Oysters and shellfish bulging with meat…
And because it was infinitely growing flesh, the texture was always exquisite—none of the usual “the bigger the tougher” woes known from more mundane worlds.
There was even a pleasant surprise.
Given how large these creatures grew… their reproductive organs were nothing to scoff at, either.
The players were in tears.
“Why is there such a shrimp!! It tastes like premium prawn, has the roe of lobster, and the size of a whole crayfish!!”
Farm-raised shrimp and crab fry were cheap, [Digestion Feed] cost nothing (the flesh was delighted), so prices weren’t high—a kilo for just a few dozen points—yet Si Zhiyan was still raking in the profits.
The farm set up right at the pond. Every afternoon, workers loaded oysters, crabs, prawns, and fish by the tub without even having to come ashore.
Wholesalers, restaurant buyers, canteen purchasers, and well-informed top players all crowded the docks, full of hope.
Usually, as soon as a shipment neared the shore, it was sold out by the time it touched land.
“I want a basket of crabs, a basket of prawns! Do you have crabs on this boat?”
“I’m purchasing for Canteen One! Did you hear me, Canteen One! I’ve got ten thousand people waiting! Give me those oysters, nowww!”
There was even a player frantically waving point coupons at the distant boats, shouting desperately,
“What do you have? …Never mind, never mind, whatever it is—I’ll take everything on your boat!!”
Everything tasted amazing!!
The crowd’s anger boiled.
Is that even fair!
…
In short, though a bit chaotic, this model kept the seafood as fresh as possible.
Caught in the morning, table-ready by noon, still lively before hitting the pot—freshness unmatched.
Where a kilo of top shrimp or seafood had once cost hundreds before the end times, now basic seafood freedom was reality for the farm’s players.
If there was one small regret, it was… you had to fight for it.
Who wouldn’t want to eat? TAKE my money and just give me those huge prawns, crabs, oysters, and scallops already!!
—But of course, Si Zhiyan never had to fight.
He never needed to say a word; the managers joyfully brought the very best to his table.
And so, as twilight slanted through the trees, Si Zhiyan washed his hands, sat down, and began dismantling crab.
The massive crabs had just come out of the pot, still piping hot, fragrant steam billowing up. Si Zhiyan used a paper towel to shield his hand, and with a soft snap, cracked open the crab’s shell.
The rich aroma of crab roe billowed up with the steam, and inside the head-sized crab, every hollow and fold was packed with golden and orange roe, sticky against palm-sized, snow-white flesh.
The process of picking out meat was like separating bundles of huge, snowy buns. The tender crab meat clustered into massive clumps, dazzlingly white, crowned with golden roe.
The crab vinegar was freshly made by Bian Xu: minced scallion and ginger, a mountain of garlic, half of which was set aside; the other half mixed and scalded by smoking-hot oil poured right over, the aroma bursting out.
Then soy sauce, fragrant vinegar, MSG, and oyster sauce, all quickly mixed in, topped with the rest of the garlic and stirred together.
The sauce glistened with the mellow warmth of oil, yet remained clear and spicy—just perfect to draw out the dish’s sweetness, delicious with both crab and shrimp.
Dip a hunk of crab into the sauce and take a giant bite—mouthful of tender, sweet crab, so rich that Si Zhiyan nearly choked, deliciousness deepening with every chew.
…
At the same time, in the first canteen’s private room where Xubei Team dined—
Huge platters of spicy crab, garlic-steamed king prawn, salt-baked crab, and more.
For once, all the Xubei Team members—together with Nidhogg—had finished their missions and gathered in high spirits, feasting in rare company. They tore into sweet, juicy shrimp, sucked crab shells, the air buzzing with joy.
Shi He nibbled on crab meat his brother had peeled for him, stealing sneaky glances up.
Knock, knock…
Nearby, Zhong Yanqing lay sprawled over her chair, as lifeless as a leaking balloon.
Nidhogg gently asked, “Really not eating?”
Zhong Yanqing glared at him, recalling her own words—and the trauma of seeing the flesh—anger deflating instantly as she slumped back into her seat.
She furiously wiped the drool from her chin, sorrowful: “I—I can resist…!”
Just then, no matter whether they were eating crab, prawn, oyster, or anything else, the same voice sounded in the ears of all farm dwellers enjoying seafood—
[Ding!]
[You have proactively ingested [Successfully Digested Flesh~Aquatic Version~]!]
[You eat with gusto, the flesh adores you.]
[You have gained buff—Flesh Enhancement Technique (Aquatic Version), increasing all physical attack by 40%!]
[Your brain has been enhanced by the flesh; memory and mental agility improved!]